Five killed in northern Italy earthquake

ROME – At least five people have been killed and up to 50 others injured in a 5.9-magnitude earthquake near the northern Italian city of Bologna, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

One person working a night shift died in the collapse of a factory and two others were killed in the collapse of another building, rescue services said on Sunday.

One man died when the workshop of a plastic-producing factory collapsed near Ferrara and the two others in a ceramics factory, while one woman died of heart attack.

Rescue officials were checking reports that other people were buried under rubble.

Firefighters said there were some “structural collapses” near the town of Bondeno, and the initial quake was followed by a fairly strong 5.1 magnitude aftershock.

“It’s in the Bologna-Ferrara area. There’s been a bit of damage, some structures have come down with people in them,” a person at the Ferrara firefighter headquarters told Reuters over the phone.

There were reports of at least one collapsed roof and calls for help in the town of Sermide between Bologna and Verona.

First television pictures taken after dawn showed serious damage to historic buildings and rural structures. Parts of a historic fortress in one town collapsed.

The quake woke residents in Bologna in the early hours of the morning, shaking furniture and setting off car alarms, a Reuters reporter living there said.

But no damage in Bologna had been reported, an official there said.

The quake, which initially registered at magnitude 6.3, was centered 35km north-northwest of Bologna in northern Italy at a relatively shallow depth of 10 km, the USGS said.

Thousands of people in the area rushed into the streets after the quake, felt in the major towns of Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Rovigo, Verona and Mantua.

The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 4:04am local time (02:04 GMT), was in the plains near Modena.

The last major earthquake to hit Italy was a 6.3 magnitude quake in the central Italian city of L’Aquila in 2009, killing nearly 300 people.